Gov. Jindal's retirement overhaul package falls short of the finish line

BATON ROUGE -- Opponents of Gov. Bobby Jindal's proposed state pension overhaul declared victory Friday as the clock ran out for bills to pass without extraordinary measures, leaving the bulk of that package all but dead for this session of the Legislature.

Times-Picayune archiveGov. Bobby Jindal's retirement overhaul package appears to be dead for the session, left stranded on the House calendar as adjournment looms Monday.

The bills have been on life support for weeks, shelved among widespread opposition from legislators who oppose changing the terms of retirement packages for existing employees. Perhaps the most controversial of those proposals, a plan to increase the retirement age for some employees, was put out of its misery on the Senate floor Friday by Sen. Elbert Guillory, the bill's sponsor.

"We will not ask you to vote on any more difficult retirement issues this session," the Opelousas Democrat said.

Three more proposed changes to the retirement system, including one that was tacked onto an innocuous bill at the last minute, were still sitting on the House's agenda when the chamber adjourned Friday. It would take a two-thirds vote to bring those bills up for debate, something that critics said was all but impossible.

"This is a great moment for the working people of Louisiana and our state employees," said Rep. John Bel Edwards, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus.

House Retirement Committee Chairman Kevin Pearson, R-Slidell, however, noted that the Legislature still had two days of meetings left before the session ends Monday at 6 p.m.

"I don't think you can sit back until it's over and sit back and say it's finished," Pearson said.

Before this year's session began, Jindal unveiled an aggressive proposal for overhauling the state retirement system that would shift some of the costs of employees' retirement from the state to its workers, required some to work for a dozen or more years longer than they had planned to reach retirement age, decreased some employees retirement benefits and merged two of the state's four retirement systems. All those proposals ended up being heavily amended before they were even brought to legislative committees, where they were even further watered down with amendments limiting their scope and intensity and phasing them in rather than giving them an abrupt start date.

Even so, the measures remained unpopular with lawmakers. The only controversial retirement proposal to win the support of both Houses was a plan to put new employees in a 401(k)-style system rather than giving them a traditional pension, a measure that supporters said will give workers more flexibility and will relieve the state of the risks of guaranteeing a set retirement benefit.

The administration has been strongly promoting that bill, which is now on the governor's desk, since its final passage Wednesday. Jindal Communications Director Kyle Plotkin referred to the proposal, known as a "cash balance plan," as the most fundamental and important retirement change the state has made in decades.

Pearson, who filed the bill, said, "10 or 20 years from now you'll look back and say this is when we decided to do something."

Guillory, in his speech on the floor, said that in considering the rest of the bills senators had considered the issue of the more than $18 billion gap between the money in the state retirement systems and the amount needed to fully pay out employee benefits and balanced that "with the rights and needs of workers."

Referring to the members of the retirement committees of both chambers, he said, "Feel our muscles. We did some heavy lifting this year."

Outside the chambers, opponents of the retirement bills declared victory.

"We've had a huge win," said Ed Parker, a representative of the public employees' union. "It's great to be on the winning side for a change."

Jeff Adelson can be reached at jadelson@timespicayune.com or 225.342.5207.